12/12/08

Fun with satellite imagery. Step one was to pull into the yard forward (yellow line). Step two was to back 180 degrees around that rusty building there (blue line). Step three was to get myself parallel to the rusty building. My eventual parking spot was somewhere in the shadow to which the red line is pointing. The railroad cars that you see along W New Boston Road should give you an idea of the scale of the area. Yeah, it was tight. I'm not sure if you can see the various pieces of equipment that were strewn about, but they were most certainly strewn about. And the whole area is loose dirt. And there are railroad tracks all over the place. My poor old truck was not enjoying that little exercise. Get stuck, rock forward, rock back, get unstuck. Rinse, recycle, repeat. Thus begins another glamorous day in the life if this here trucker. That backing practice in CDL school made no mention of this kind of shit.

The guys at the consignee probably enjoyed the delivery even less than I did. They don't have a loading dock and they don't have a pallet jack. The fellas had to hook up a strap to a tractor, place the strap around the barrels in my trailer, and drag them to the tailgate. Then they could lift them from the trailer with a forklift. One barrel at a time, that took a while.

After I was empty, I bounced over into Arkansas to look for somewhere to park. I found a little Circle K off of Exit 2 and backed in. Once I got parked, I received my next assignment. I would be picking up in Texarkana, Texas and heading for North Carolina. I had an afternoon pickup and some time to kill, so I tried to spruce up the inside of my truck a little bit. My last few stops have involved one muddy mess after another. Some people manage to keep their trucks squeaky clean, but I have no idea how.

Once I reached the "good enough, that'll do" stage of my cleaning, I started to write down my directions to the shipper. I hadn't received an order number yet. That seemed a little odd. I did have directions though, so I took a look at my map and concluded that I would be ready to go. I checked my paid miles (1,052) against the route that PC Miler suggested (1,038) and then noticed something that I hadn't seen the first time around. That afternoon pickup... yeah, it's tomorrow afternoon. Aww hell. Looks like the good old Circle K is home for the night. Maybe Bill and Ted will come crashing down in their phone booth or something. Otherwise it looks like much boredom is in store for me.

I'll be delivering in North Carolina on Tuesday morning. Then I have to put in my request for home time. If things go well, I should make a few bucks on the way up and be home for the weekend. If not, I may have to drive my own car to Niagara Falls and join a family vacation already in progress. There's not much that I could have done differently though. I had to grab another run before requesting home time to make sure I get a few bucks in the bank. This week's pay will be around $1,300 so that mission will be accomplished. When I come back to work it will be the week of Christmas, so my chances of making good money that week will be up to the luck of the draw. My first year out, I cleaned up while all of the other drivers were home. Last year was a little slower for me.

I haven't managed to find an attorney yet, but they're still going ahead with that damn false advertising. They don't like look this! I'll get these guys. Sooner or later, I'll get them.